By Heather Allen
The smell of sweat lingers in the air of the west campus weight room. The floor is covered with powder from the constant rubbing of hand chalk. The sounds of heavy metal and grunts echo through the walls of this huge warehouse where the competitors of the Power Club’s first event struggle to get their weights up.
Headed by sophomore Commercial Music major Daniel Stockdale, the Power Club is a place where both men and women who are interested in strength sports can come together to work out, learn techniques for exercises, and bond over how big their muscles are. It also gives its members a positive atmosphere for better assessment of their own strength in comparison to their body weight.
“The power club is just something that I kind of thought up when I came here,” Stockdale said. “I come from a lot of athletic background and I was used to the competitive atmosphere in the weight room. When I came here I was surprised that there were no records in the weight room and that there wasn’t really any strength sports stuff really on campus so I decided I would make something that would offer that to people.”
The event that occurred of Friday April 8th consisted of two competitions, bench pressing and dead lift. Bench pressing is when the lifter lies on the workout bench with the bar above them and their feet flat on the floor. The lifter then proceeds to wrap their hands around the bar to lift it off of the rack in order to gradually lower it to their chest. The lifter then tries to rapidly raise the bar back to its starting position by fully extending their arms. Dead lift is when the lifter stands up completely straight with their knees bent in order to grasp the bar with the maximum amount of weight they can lift and bring it up off the floor to a standing position.
“On a scale of one to ten the competition was a ten for me,” freshman Communications Major Spencer Troutman said. “You’re exerting every ounce of energy and strength that you have so you have to drive yourself in order to fulfill the task at hand. The best thing was that I went 40 pounds heavier than I’ve ever lifted.”
Since this was the Power Club’s first event, it was surprising to see a decent sized crowd. Parents, friends and roommates all came to support their strong competitor through this long, tedious competition. With tenants from Trinity first and second south cheering on their hall mate, there was a great sense of brotherhood in the room.
“There were definitely some pretty good competitors like Matt [Kimmel] and Daniel [Stockdale], but I definitely rooted for my first south boys Bryce Chamberlain and Andres Gil,” junior Cinematic Arts major and Trinity RA Joey Banasihan said. “I knew that they probably wouldn’t have won the whole thing, but for both being freshmen and being where they’re at right now was pretty impressive.”
Although the squatting competition was taken out due to the fact that most of the contestants do not know the correct way to do it, the overall event was a success. It was fairly matched between all of the contestants with lightweight and heavyweight classes. Each contestant was required to bring a can of food to donate in order to compete. Some personal records were beat, which included Daniel Stockdale’s lifting 3.9 times his body weight at 995lbs. The Power Club’s goal is to have one hosted event each semester. Having women in the club as well would be another goal.